Buy or Build New Gaming System for approx £1000?

[saxon77]

Hey there.

Thanks for reading my post. I'll try and keep this short

Per the title I was wondering whether it would be better to buy, rather than build my next gaming system.

Before all the advice comes flooding in from all you kind folk, just a couple of points to keep in mind please:

I am going to need a new mobo as i'm still on Socket 775!

My budget is £1000 max (yep, by that £ sign I'm based in the UK) and would like to think a system at that price will last me at least a good couple of years without the need for any upgrades.

My gaming is done mainly on a 24" screen, but will occasionally be on a 40" too.

I have no intentions of overclocking.

I would like to play games at maximum settings.

Sorry to the ATI/AMDers but I've always been a 3dfx/Nvidia guy and would much prefer to continue to use a graphics card by them but might consider a switch if a card would be better for gaming and complimented by the CPU. (I was initially thinking the GTX770 but would that be overkill seeing as I game mainly on a 1280 x 768 resolution?).

Speaking of the CPU, I'm looking to new 4th Gen Intel CPU; either the i7-4770k or the i5-4670K but am getting confused as to which is actually the better for gaming so advice on this would be much appreciated.

I did initially think to buy the components separately, but with companies such as Aria, Overclockers and Scan doing what appear to be decent systems at decent prices am I actually wondering whether I'd be better off getting a ready made system.

Components such as PSU, hard drives and dvd writer could be reused should I build but I would like to move away from Vista so a new OS would be needed.

Thanks in advance for all advice

 

[X79]

You can fill out this mate:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/353572-31-build-upgrade-advice

I always always always advise people to build their own.

You know what you get and don't get and you save a ton of

cash; as well as time, seeing as you don't have to run back and

forth to the shops to buy headache pills to combat all the marketing speak.

A GTX 770 would be overkill on that resolution; but hey, that just means more FPS! Ha..

You only need an i5 for gaming. The K denotes that it can be overclocked.

This build should be perfect for ya:


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£179.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.49 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£115.33 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£41.77 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£71.95 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.97 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (£319.99 @ Dabs)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.98 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£65.99 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.19 @ Aria PC)
Total: £998.80
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-22 17:23 BST+0100)

The CPU is in the sweetspot and it can be overclocked.

The CPU cooler is a solid and renowned one, which will keep things cool; especially when OC'ing.

Plenty RAM for gaming and it's not entirely slow either; 1600Mhz. Ideal.

You get one of the best SSDs, for faster boot times of the things you put on it.

Coupled with the SSD you get a 1TB HDD from a reliable brand, for mass-storage.

The GPU is one of the newest ones available and while you could settle for less, why bother.

The motherboard further supports SLI, meaning that once the frames start to drop, you just throw

in another GTX 770 and that ought to do the trick; at least for a little while. You won't have to worry

about adding a more powerful PSU at that either, as the one in there is already ready for SLI. You

can however chose something like an XFX 550W one if you'd like, without problems. However you'll

most likely have to increase the wattage for SLI. The casing will keep things nice, quiet and convenient

and you get Windows 8 and so forth. Cost can be cut too:


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£144.88 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£115.60 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£41.77 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.97 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (£290.97 @ Dabs)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.98 @ Dabs)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£52.98 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.19 @ Aria PC)
Total: £825.49
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-22 17:29 BST+0100)

It'll still retain a lot of its power.

 

[saxon77]

Cheers for that X79, you are an absolute Star!

I'll likely go with the 1st suggestion as it looks a very good solid build with components that'll last me a good few years (hopefully more) before needing to upgrade any.

Big thanks for the link to that website - it's an absolute dream for best priced components and system building!

(On the issue of graphics cards, is the GTX770 the best in it's price range? I don't want to get it only to then find that a similar card by Nvidia (or, dare I say, even an AMD equivalent) would have been better for my purpose).

Cheers

 

[X79]

No problem.

You could go for a Radeon 7970 as suggested in the second build if you like. It's only a few % worse

performance wise, than a GTX 770. You'll net around 4 modern games with it too. The Radeon one has been

named best in that price tier on toms before; but that was before the GTX 770. Either card will send you flying

really, in terms of FPS in most games. I believe that in a few months time, AMD will be releasing some new cards

too. Alternatively, you could go with the soon to be released GTX 760. These are all good GPUs essentially. As for

how long they last, well that's really dependent on what you do to them! If you're constantly wanting to max new

and demanding games, they won't necessarily last as long as you'd like. By last, I mean push FPS over 30, at high

settings. Therefore I planned for that by giving you an SLI/CF ready motherboard and a PSU with sufficient wattage,

so that in the event you want to either use CF for Radeon or SLI for GTX GPUs, you'll be able to. If you'd like some suggestions

for some lower end, yet still powerful GTX GPUs, then these are noteworthy:

- GTX 650 Ti Boost (Essentially a cheaper GTX 660. Both solid mid-range cards).

- GTX 660

- GTX 670

- GTX 680 (This GPU uses the GK 104 GPU, which is actually the same as the GTX 770. However the 770 is still a bit more powerful)

- GTX 760 (Whenever it's available)

- GTX 770

And here's some equivalent Radeon cards:

- Radeon 7850

- Radeon 7870

- Radeon 7870 XT (Better than the previous one by a bit)

- Radeon 7950 (You'll get some free games with this one and the next ones)

- Radeon 7970 (The one the GTX 770 set out to beat. They're still pretty close though).

You won't want to go lower or higher than any of all those previous cards, due to the cards either

being ridiculously expensive or simply irrelevant for what you're trying to achieve.


On another note, you said you didn't have any intentions of OC'ing. Well if you're serious about that claim, then

I can downgrade the CPU in the first build to a Non-K CPU. Since you'd essentially be paying extra for a feature

you're not going to be using otherwise; having an unlocked CPU that can be overclocked. While it will require its

share of reading, OC'ing is by no means only something computer geniuses can delve into. Not going the route of

overclocking will furthermore enable you to save some more cash, by forfeiting the Hyper 212 CPU cooler, seeing

as you'll run just fine on the stock cooler that should come with your parts. It's up to you. You don't necessarily

stand to gain much from overclocking, besides learning more about your computer/hardware and making things

run a little faster. However it can perhaps add value, by making components go faster than they normally would.

Also yes, partpicker is superb. No worries mate.